KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo has begun to collect at source income taxes which even some of its top politicians were failing to pay, to help combat a deepening fiscal crisis, the budget minister said on Tuesday.
Resource-rich but impoverished Congo has seen income from mineral exports, its primary foreign currency earner, plummet since mid-2008 as demand for its copper and cobalt has dried up due to the global economic downturn. Amid a growing budget shortfall, the government is under pressure to cut costs and boost tax revenues.
Budget Minister Michel Lokola told Reuters that last month's decision to tax government salaries at source, rather than rely on employees to pay taxes after receiving their salaries, had already raised roughly $1 million. "They just weren't paying. The government ministers we replaced, the MPs, the senators, they didn't pay," said Lokola, who entered the government last October in a cabinet shake-up that saw his predecessor Adolphe Muzito named prime minister.
Lokola said the move was partly aimed at setting a good example, adding that Congolese President Joseph Kabila's government salary was also subject to the measure. "He is aware of this, and he approves of it ... I don't see how we can expect the private sector to pay their taxes if we don't pay ourselves," he said.
The decision was applauded by residents of Kinshasa, the country's sprawling riverside capital.
"I think it's necessary. Everyone used to pay their taxes, but for a while now, people don't pay anymore," said one government employee who asked not to be named.
Tax evasion is rampant in Congo and is seen by many as vital to their economic survival. A convoluted tax system, used by employees of state agencies to help supplement salaries often received months late if at all, has helped make Congo the world's worst country in which to do business, according to a World Bank report last September.
The study found that medium-sized businesses that fully complied with the demands of state agencies would pay an average of 32 different taxes, theoretically consuming around 230 percent of their profits.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush. "I girded my loins and laid into him!"
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes. because they don't exist
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration. or corroboration. or Carney's assurance of truthfulness. He doesn't wanna lose all credibility
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'" ooohhhhh - that rapier-like wit!
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden. "He's a fooking nut. Really. Says anything that pops into that peabrain. Absolutely no control between the brain and mouth"
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush. "I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq "Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die." ha! Let's start telling the truth?
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said. "No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine." Man, when you get pwn3d by Kerry, you're toast
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2009 19:04 ||
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I was listening to a talk show station this morning, and the host stated that potentially it would mean that up to 12 million illegals would become legal citizens. His concern had to do with what the impact would be to the job market given the current employment slowdown taking place. This would also likely impact salaries driving them downward in the process. More voters for the Democratic party will probably come of this as well.
While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country's immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.
Mr. Obama will frame the new effort -- likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue -- as "policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.
#2
Mr. Obama will frame the new effort -- likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue
Even the rubes have to be catching on to this BS. Float the balloon and rile up the opposition and special interest groups. Then call in the attack dogs to accuse the opponents of some kind of ism in order to create a distraction from the real boondoggles. Finally, assign blame for the unfulfilled promise and kick the can down the road. All together now - Chicagoooah Chicagoooah that toddlin town.
#4
This will lead to violence....the mood is already simmering. The idea that we have gone so far into debt to pay for the stupidity of bankers, politicians and irresponsible borrowers living far beyond their means has people angry. The rampant inflation that is coming will even further steal wealth away from Americans and their savings. Now introduce the idea of citizenship and benefits to millions who don't deserve to even be here will break the back of public confidence in goverment.....anger and rioting will follow and ugly confrontations will make communities very, very self-protective.
I pity the poor cops who have to stand between real American citizens and the scum politicians who fail to obey the people's will on this issue.
#5
yeah, we can tell the jobless to just suckitup. Heh. Great timing, Obamateur
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2009 20:02 Comments ||
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#6
Now introduce the idea of citizenship and benefits to millions who don't deserve to even be here will break the back of public confidence in goverment.....
The back of public confidence in government is already broken. So far as I can tell, the public has confidence in the military and that is about all.
The Maryland General Assembly is expected to pass easily a bill that would allow Democrat Gov. Martin O'Malley to seize the rights to horse racing's Preakness Stakes and the racetrack on which it is run by using eminent domain.
Mr. O'Malley introduced the emergency legislation Wednesday in response to rumors that the race, the second leg of the fabled Triple Crown, may be moved to another state by its owner, Toronto-based Magna Entertainment Corp., which filed for bankruptcy last month.
"This is a very bold step," said state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Prince George's Democrat, who said there was widespread support for the action in the Senate. "It's a move that the state needs to make to make sure the Preakness stays in Maryland."
The bill, which will be debated in the General Assembly on Thursday, would subject all rights and racing events that are associated with the Preakness Stakes - including its trophy, the Woodlawn Vase - to a state takeover.
It also would allow the state to purchase or exercise eminent domain over Magna's Maryland properties: Laurel Park Racetrack, the Bowie Race Course Training Center and Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, said the House also would likely approve the measure, but that it was not in the state's interest to run the Preakness or the tracks in the long term.
"We just want to see the Preakness stay in Maryland. That's something the assembly agrees with," he said.
Under eminent domain, the government is empowered to seize private property in the public interest and offer fair compensation to property owners. But the practice has provoked controversy in recent years, with many property rights advocates seeing it as an abuse of government power.
#3
...The problem here - which the Gov and his enablers seem to have overlooked - is that:
A)Magna is based in FREAKING TORONTO CANADA, and therefore there isn't much besides seizing their MD property that will make a difference.
B)The Preakness is intellectual property. Magna owns the rights to it, and they can take it anywhere they want. MD can seize every racecourse in the state, and all that means is Magna will hold it in NY or DE, or any other state that will be more than willing to take the race and the millions of dollars it brings in.
Proof once again that today's politicians would rather own and destroy than share and help.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/09/2009 6:23 Comments ||
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#4
You folk are just showing your political bias.
Why I'm sure if you read the Constitution, the Federalist Papers etc, you'll see that horse racing is one of the main functions of any government
Posted by: john frum ||
04/09/2009 7:54 Comments ||
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#5
Ditto John! The Preakness is just too big to fail move away. I'll ask anyway, but I suppose there's really no chance a good Irish Catholic like Governor O'Malley would want to.....seize the District also?
#12
only one horse can win the Preakness, which is, like sooo unfair to the other horses. The Gubbmint should step in and level the playing field so everyone's a winner
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/09/2009 15:22 Comments ||
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#13
Why don't the Democrats just cut to the chase and seize everything in sight? That way the government will own everything, there will be no private property, and they can dole stuff out to their patrons.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/09/2009 20:03 Comments ||
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#16
Government couldn't make a profit in whore hosuing so now they'll try horse racing. Maybe the solution to the drug problem is to let the government take over dealing.
These two were joined at the hip for lots of stuff. Expect more fireworks in the near future.
A congressional ethics panel has opened a preliminary inquiry into Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s role in the scandal surrounding the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama, the Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday.
Mr. Jackson said he is cooperating with the review by the Office of Congressional Ethics. The panel is looking into his communications with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was indicted last week on charges of widespread corruption, including allegations that Mr. Blagojevich tried to sell Mr. Obama's former Senate seat to the highest bidder.
"I was notified last week about the inquiry and am eager to answer any questions and provide any information to the [ethics board] about my actions related to last year's vacant Senate seat," Mr. Jackson said in a statement issued by his chief of staff, Kenneth Edmonds.
Mr. Jackson, son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil-rights activist, has acknowledged he was "Senate Candidate A," one of a group of potential candidates for the Senate seat identified by federal authorities in the corruption case against Mr. Blagojevich.
In the indictment of the former governor unsealed last week, prosecutors said Mr. Blagojevich believed he could gain $1.5 million in campaign funds raised by backers of Mr. Jackson if he picked him for the seat. Around Dec. 4, just days before Mr. Blagojevich was arrested, he told his brother, Robert Blagojevich, who ran his campaign fund, to notify a representative of Mr. Jackson that some of the promised fund raising needed to be provided before he would name Mr. Jackson to the Senate seat, according to the indictment. A meeting between his brother and the associate of Mr. Jackson's was arranged, but later canceled, prosecutors allege. The then-governor later appointed Roland Burris.
Mr. Jackson, whose statements followed a report of the probe by the Chicago Sun-Times in Wednesday's editions, reiterated that he has done nothing wrong and rejects "pay to play" politics. "I'm confident that this new ethics office — which I voted in favor of creating — will be able to conduct a fair and expeditious review and dismiss this matter," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2009 00:00 ||
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#4
Nonsense, Kofi. Our betters, the MSM journalists, thought about those ties for a few nanoseconds and decided that there was nothing there. Therefore, there is nothing there.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/09/2009 22:33 Comments ||
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In the Muslim world, the notion that somehow everything is the fault of the Israelis lacks balance because there are two sides to every question," AFP quoted the US president as telling university students in Istanbul.
To the Jewish members of the group Obama said, "I say the same thing to my Jewish friends - you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians. Learning to stand in someone else's shoes, to see through their eyes... this is how peace begins."
"The world will be what you make of it," Obama told the students. "You can choose to make new bridges instead of new walls."
Shortly before leaving Turkey, the US president had held out Iraq as an example of the change he seeks in policies inherited from former president George W. Bush. "Moving the ship of state takes time," he told a group of students in Istanbul. He noted his long-standing opposition to the war, yet said, "Now that we're there," the US troop withdrawal has to be done "in a careful enough way that we don't see a collapse into violence."
#1
Its not hard to see the perspective of the Paleos, Mr. President, its all over in a flash. Its the damn noise, blood and guts and some brain matter mixed with bones and eyeballs and such that tends to fog that perspective.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
04/09/2009 10:00 Comments ||
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#2
Oh, yeah, I forgot. Stop channeling Rumsfeld, Mr. President. He has a copyright on using the metaphor of a slow ship. But Biden is, of course, allowed to use anyone's copyright.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
04/09/2009 10:02 Comments ||
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#3
Obama said, "I say the same thing to my Jewish friends - you have to see the perspective of the Palestinians.
Mr. President, a real good way to see the perspective of the Palestinians is to read the HAMAS Charter. Let us know what ya think.
US President Barack Obama will celebrate Passover Thursday night with staff and friends in what is believed to be the first White House seder attended by an American president.
The event was slipped onto the president's public schedule Tuesday night with little fanfare, following a letter signed by Obama earlier in the day wishing Americans who mark the day a "peaceful and relaxing holiday."
While presidential proclamations in honor of Passover have been common throughout the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, this year's seder is believed to be the first of its kind.
"I'm really happy to hear about it," said Steve Rabinowitz, who once led a staff seder in the Clinton White House but didn't know of any White House seder in which the president had personally taken part before now. "It's been an extremely open White House to all faith communities, certainly including ours."
William Daroff, who runs the United Jewish Communities' Washington office, recalled that former president Franklin D. Roosevelt snuck out the back door of the White House in 1943 to avoid seeing rabbis marching out front to demand US action to save European Jews from the Nazis.
"Sixty-six years later the President of the United States is spending Thursday evening with his friends and family celebrating the liberation and survival of the Jewish people," Daroff noted, calling the event "a testament to how far we have come as a Jewish people in America.
"Jews are a vital component in the mosaic that is American culture and society. Our welcome through the front door, and the dining room door, of the White House speaks to the inclusiveness of today's America and of President Obama," he said. "This night is indeed different from all other nights."
In his letter, Obama called the story of Jews' ascent from slavery to freedom in the Land of Israel as "among the most powerful stories of suffering and redemption in human history," accompanied by rituals and symbols that indicate "the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it
entails."
He also said the holiday presented a message for all humankind. "As part of a larger global community, we all must work to ensure that our brothers and sisters of every race, religion, culture and nationality are free from bondage and repression, and are able to live in peace."
He concluded his letter with the traditional Hebrew greeting "chag sameach," or happy holiday.
Though Passover starts on Wednesday evening, Obama will be hosting the second seder, on Thursday night, apparently so that those in attendance can celebrate with their families on the first night.
The guest list includes the president, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, as well as a dozen staff members and friends and their families. Most of them were on a campaign stop in Harrisburg, PA with then-senator Obama last year when the first night of Passover fell.
According to the White House, Obama insisted on holding an impromptu seder, and this year invited those who were with him to celebrate together again.
Note the President of the World-Speak "free our brothers of every race." Political constituent cover and precursor for his Hajj attendance no doubt.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
